Two Boats and Two Bus Rides

Took the Carris 742 bus down to CUF Hospital to start up a relationship with a new physician. Been here long enough and this old '72 Chevy body needs to be maintained. I mean I am leaking some oil and the cruise control only works intermittently. My knees have rusted but they are still functional. 

Problem is the appointment I set is for tomorrow. Sigh. There was miscommunication with the person who gave me the date. I believe she told me it was Wednesday but it was 1 February which is Thursday. So be it. I was not angry, disappointed, or holding any other negative emotion. I was just empty.  Not an awful place to be after a disappointment. 

On the 742 back I read my Facebook stream. One friend posted a lovely bit of wisdom repeated by Thich Nhat Hanh,(thank you Rozan). It reads:

- The Empty Boat –

A monk decided to meditate alone, away from his monastery.

He took his boat out to the middle of the lake, moored it there, closed his eyes and began meditating. After a few hours of undisturbed silence, he suddenly felt the bump of another boat colliding with his own.

With his eyes still closed, he felt his anger rising, and by the time he opened his eyes, he was ready to scream at the boatman who had so carelessly disturbed his meditation. But when he opened his eyes, he was surprised to find that it was an empty boat that had struck his own. It had probably gotten untethered and floated to the middle of the lake.

At that moment, the monk had a great realization. He understood that the anger was within him; it merely needed the bump of an external object to provoke it out of him. From then on, whenever he came across someone who irritated him or provoked him to anger, he would remind himself, that the other person was merely an empty boat, the anger was within him.

I smiled after reading this. I actually had not let disappointment (an external object) provoke anger today.  This to me is a win. I am sure it is just one of many empty boats I will face today and in the days to come. It is my hope that I can attain the level of equanimity to face them all with acceptance rather than anger.

The plan today is to head out and down to the Museum of the Orient. Loren and I have planned a series of museum visits over the next few days. What good is it to live in such a large city if you don’t immerse yourself in its culture and atmosphere? 

We will take our time travelling to and exploring the museum. Learning about the history and culture of this place doesn't mean there isn't time for a coffee and a pastry now does it? After the museum, there may be more enjoyable wandering. It being in the mid-60s with sunshine, a stroll along the Tejo can't be ruled out.

And a little piano jazz can only make the day better. 

 

Late Summer 1978, The Waves Come Crashing

Sunshine and a temperature of eighty degrees; the cloudless sky is blue and stretches uninterrupted to the horizon. Late afternoon in August, warm ocean water surrounds me. I am standing chest deep in the sea, a couple hundred feet from the shore. My neck twists to watch the wave crest behind me. Throwing my arms out to form a flesh and blood crucifix I bounce forward and up at a 45-degree angle in hope the wave catches me. It works.

First up, then forward, my body blasts past, sometimes through, the old guys and small kids who are just wading. The wave has caught the bottom of my arms and I am heading quickly towards the shoreline. I rush and rush. The ocean here is gritty and has small bits of seaweed, dark green and pocketed with delicate bubbles of air floating in it. As I rush over this gunk, I invariably suck some salt water into my mouth and nose.

When the ride is over I lie for a second on the beach with sand in my swimming trunks. Standing I shake it out. In this moment all I want to do is get back out there and catch another wave. Body surfing is mindless fun. The cycle of walking out, watching the waves, tensing up and then heading back to shore in that momentary burst of motion and adrenaline joyfully sucks the energy out of you. Vigor evaporates not in little bits but by the handful, by the bucketful. Again, again, into the waves and froth. In my mind I think there will be an even larger and better wave or maybe not. However, I keep taking myself out until I am limp and pulverized.

Eventually I drag my tired waterlogged ass up to my towel. My fingers are like prunes wrinkled and unnaturally white. Lying on the blanket I close my eyes but the sun still beats its way through my eyelids especially when I am lying on my back. Turn over, turn over again. Screw any worries about skin cancer. I am decades away from forty. Hell, maybe the suntan lotion (no we are not talking about sunscreen) has an SPF of 4. Hours will pass. My tan deepens and another beach day ends.

My favorite part of the day’s end is watching the light disappear. Looking at the Atlantic from this New Jersey beach you don’t witness the brilliant colors of a sunset. You have to be on the other side of the island to see that. What you see is the ocean's color changing. It changes from bright reflective blue, almost the image of a broken mirror, to white gray, and then to dark green and black over about two or so hours.

It is that shift to the point where the water reflects the pale light of mid-twilight that I love the  most. Here I am as close to God as I can be. Walking out into the water I let my mind go blank. Warm water and warm air, this is my vision of heaven. My sense of self evaporates. It won’t last long but this is a magical moment. I am at peace, real peace, true peace. Absolved of every burdening thought, freed from every worry and demand of time the water laps against my waist.

Suddenly the day has passed.  With silence time tracks on. Quickly comes this late summer night moving into early morning with a full moon hanging clear. There is no haze tonight. On an evening like this the dunes are more moonscape than earthly world. Early August and the night should be hot and muggy but it isn't. Being on this thin strip of land with water so close on either side, the wind cools the evening quickly. There is dampness in the air. You never escape it on the beach, but it is not oppressive. 

On the beach after dark, I stare out at the rising and falling waves. I feel the rhythm as I hear the waves fall, one after another in their infinite cycle. I hum a country song, sort of. It is a new  song closer to folk rock than to Merle Haggard. “The sun is slowly sinking down, but the moon is surely rising.” Ah sweet baby James’ tune and words hang in my head. A couple of choruses play out in my head and then I grow quiet. Off I head to this summer’s rental apartment and sleep. With luck and grace tomorrow will be just as beautiful.

Another Chair is Empty in the Class of '74's Homeroom

People, they come together.

People, they fall apart.

No one can stop us now.

'Cause we are all made of stars.

 

-Moby, We Are All Made of Stars

 

 

Days in Lisboa are unpredictable. If the weather application says no rain until late in the day, it will rain at nine in the morning and continue until dark. Likewise, if the forecast is for a day full of rain, the day will dawn with bright sun. When you live this close to the Atlantic Ocean, you have to accept the weather you get. Like many things in life, you hold your hand out the window and guess what will come next and then you accept what will be.

 

On dry days I start laundry early. Doing the wash ties me to the house for hours at both the start and end of the day. On wet days I do things, I get stuff done. I go online initially. I check bank accounts, moving on to clearing out my email inbox (replying when needed) and finally writing up a to-do list for the rest of the day. There are so many things I must do with what waking time I am granted. Mine are the daily rituals of a man getting closer to 70 than to 60. 

 

If the rain has stopped by the time I pull away from the screen I head out for my daily exercise. This morning on only slightly wet pavement I walked about a mile and a half in just under half an hour. Today my musically inclined adult son accompanied me and we talked almost the whole time about Merle Haggard, Marty Robins and John Prine. We talked about the talent of telling a very visual, very visceral story in two minutes and a half. 

 

We talked about how sometimes you have to consider what the lyrics meant when the song was written. John Prine’s Sam Stone, Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore and Hello in There were all released while the Vietnam war was still raging. They were anti-establishment protest songs. As time has moved on, for almost 50 years, they have become quaint artifacts of an idealistic generation that has lost its way. So many years have passed since that first John Prine album dropped. I was a teenager then, and decades have passed since l first heard it. Those songs poured out of our family's kitchen radio while I did my chores, i.e., drying dinner dishes. That house is gone.  That radio is gone.  That part of my life is gone.

 

In years past I rode my bicycle for miles at a time for exercise. That was exhilarating. But one day I fell and tore up my rib cage. Flying down the streets on two wheels is mostly over for me. My daily walks are my exercise. My rhythmic footfalls are my meditation, my prayers to whoever might be listening. My prayers have become much more frequent, much more urgent and far more heartfelt.

 

Unlike today on most days when I wander out I travel alone. Trust me on this, I carefully watch for cracks in the stones that make up my pathway. Hundreds of thousands of cracks await my feet as I shuffle through my route. Moving carefully, I barely see the stores lining the street. Rarely do I glimpse the sky above, lest a crack reach out and grab my toes. This would give gravity the chance to wrap its tendrils around me and pull me down hard. Day, dusk, or night my focus is downward, for safety I tell myself.

 

One day less than a year ago I looked up when I set out on an evening journey. A brightly pulsing star blazed by and was lost.  Taking a solid stance with my legs apart and hands on my hips I gazed upward at the sky. What was that?  

 

In my youth, I knew the sky so well. Gazing up at the stars that moonless night, I saw that the sky I knew had been forever changed. That shooting star I watched blaze across the sky disintegrating into nothingness had once been a prominent feature on my mental map of the universe. Now a black and gaping hole left the firmament diminished. How to explain the feeling? At that moment the air in my lungs seemed inadequate and my body felt like nothing more than a shell.

 

As the year wore on more stars fell from the sky. It became obvious that the cosmos I had once known like the back of my hand was shrinking. Darkness spread. Stars that had barely registered in my awareness were now quite notable in their absence. Stars I had known since I was a teen had disappeared over the years but this was different, this was much more personal. As this year has progressed I have kept an eye out for more changes in the firmament. This universe I have known for almost my entire life seems to be ebbing away.

 

A few days ago, another bright star burned out.  She was a brilliant and magnificent star similar to the one who vanished earlier in the year. The star that streaked by had shed so much light on this world. With this one gone as well; the sky became noticeably darker. As I stare at the sky tonight I am shaken.

 

These lights burning out, or simply blinking off into nothing, will only accelerate. In just a few years the sky I knew as a young man will be no more. One by one the beacons in my firmament will fall or fade. Truth be told I may not be here when what was my sky goes completely dark. But until the day when the last of my beloved night lights turns nova and then fades I hope someone hold the memories of the original star chart near and dear to their breast.